Books like Freaks of Fortune

I love the way this book makes the very old story of the French Revolution new and exciting by telling the parallel story of how so much of the turmoil of that period was etched onto the money that a succession of governments issued.

I learned so much, both from the shifting set of images on French money and the wonderful stories about how a confused populace used this money to the best of their ability, as their paper currency lost both the crowned heads that once adorned it and, in the process, much of its value. Spang ingeniously recounts the revolutionaries’ efforts to paper over a failing revolution with vacuous promises to pay. 

I remember traveling in Europe as a teenager in the early 1980s, before ATMs and euros, when American Express traveler’s checks allowed me to pay for room and board across a succession of sovereign states.

Booker ends his book where I started my personal monetary journey, telling the fascinating history of how (mostly British) tourists paid their way across Europe and North America, using such strange devices as circular notes and early incarnations of the traveler’s check. The book includes numerous color plates of these pieces of paper, issued by Thomas Cook, Lloyds Bank, and even American Express! I also learned about how far the pound sterling counted as a coin of the world and not just a coin of the realm (answer: not as far as I thought!).

Before Valenze published this book, she had mostly written about people—religious visionaries, working-class women, and the like. Since this book appeared in 2006, she has focused on things—specifically milk and, as seen through the eyes of Thomas Malthus, the food that sustains populations.

This book is where these two foci meet, and the book has deeply informed my own work on money and the way I teach British history to my students. My main takeaway from the book is Valenze’s claim that Britain “detoxified” money toward the end of the eighteenth century. Around this time, moralists found cause to focus on its redemptive capacity and shifted their chagrin from money itself to its abuse. Money, she argues, became a measure of status, a judicial incentive (in the form of rewards for wanted criminals), and a vehicle of philanthropy–emerging, alongside the Enlightenment, as “a universal instrument of personal agency.”

When I got wind of this book, I had just finished writing a book about gold and money in Britain from the 1750s to the 1850s. Although I knew about the long history of British money prior to the 1750s and also about its complicated history down to the present, I jumped at the chance to read the whole story laid out between two covers. Blaazer deftly accomplishes this task, with a special focus on the strikingly different paths that money took in Britain’s three corners of Ireland, Scotland, and England (not so much on Wales, as is so often the case in such histories!).

How a country manages its money, it turns out, says much about how it governs its people—ranging from willful indifference in Ireland to consistent policies in England and Scotland that favored the wealthy (and especially the bankers) over the middling classes. A final advantage of… show more.

I really loved this book!

Desan’s work filled multiple gaps in my knowledge regarding the historical circumstances that contributed to modern money.

In my view, it is the best and most comprehensive book for anyone who wants to know how we arrived at current monetary arrangements. The research and writing are masterful, comprehensive, and there are many ‘oh my, I didn’t know that’ moments. 

A real eye-opener and an essential read for anyone interested in money, finance, and the emergence of capitalism.

Easily the best and most authoritative book since Dickson’s The Financial Revolution In England – a must-read!

Lessig’s book argues that the pretense we live in America in a capitalist economy that follows the rules of the markets, with profit maximization and copyright protection (dating back to the Constitution), is by now completely discarded. Focusing on the entertainment industry and the arts, Lessig illustrates the limits of such thinking given the conduct of millions who download music, films, and videos without permission and continue to “remix” them within the legal limits of “fair use.”   

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 1990s saw the model of democratic capitalism prevail. Thirty years later, democracy is being questioned, and capitalism has been threatened by growing inequality.

Martin Wolf’s book provides a deep study of the underlying causes of this worrying development, something I very much appreciate. For all its flaws, Wolf argues that democratic capitalism remains the most promising economic model to provide individual freedom and shared prosperity, but it will require a revisiting of the concept of citizenship to foster a shared belief in the common good.

People love saying books changed their lives, but I can confidently say this book altered my perception of reality. I was already a fan of Jia’s journalism, but this book illuminated my life in a way I never expected. 

As a writer, I often think the best work hits you in that strange place before a feeling becomes a thought. It puts words to a sense you are carrying around but haven’t articulated yet. This book did that to me more than anything I’ve ever read. It didn’t ease my anxieties, but it explained why I felt the way I did and made me feel less alone (and a bit smarter).

It finally explained to me what everyone was talking about when they blatantly blamed “capitalism” for all their problems. 

The book is, like the others I have recommended, decidedly distinctive and untraditional. It traces the convoluted history of capitalist thought prior to its advent (which is itself the subject of ceaseless debate). Reducing forces to “passion” and “order” made me look at a complicated subject in a new way.

I found this book so interesting because it documents how European prosperity was also shaped by deep historical ties with Asia. Digging through a huge trove of historical archives, the authors document how Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire brought capitalist practices to Europe in the 13th century.

It’s not an easy read, but I found that careful study pays off because it offers such an original perspective on Europe’s success. I liked how their evidence buttresses Blaut’s more speculative critique of Eurocentrism, also extending it by showing that Asian initiative shaped European success—it was not just colonialism and slavery.